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From: Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Somewheres
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2024 07:41:54 +0100
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 Ar an cúigiú lá de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Bertel Lund Hansen: 

 > Christian Weisgerber wrote:
 > 
 > > Also, endings can be lost in specific grammatical contexts while
 > > persisting elsewhere.  Since the reduction of vowels in final
 > > syllables to [ə] between Old and Middle High German, there hasn't
 > > been a general change affecting endings in German, I think.  However,
 > > people who studied German as a foreign language are probably very
 > > aware of the masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e, e.g. "mit
 > > dem Kind(e)".
 > 
 > I don't know if I *studied* German when learning it in school and later
 > reading in d.e.s.d, but until now I didn't know about that dative form.
 > I don't think that I have met it in songs either.

Mark Twain comments on it so it may be that explicit mention of it is more
familiar to native English speakers. I was aware of it, but I did study German
fairly intensely as an adult.

-- 
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)